Żebyście Zdechli

Die, suckers: Graffiti Goes East 1990-201

Writers: Rety, Blekot, Krizm, Miesto, Salo, Pier, Unik, Tasak

‘Die, suckers’, is what cleaners roller-painted onto an end-to-end buffed car in an act of powerless fury. The exhibition’s title alludes to the illegal graffiti bombing of train yards in the early 1990s, the genre’s golden era in Poland. This is hip-hop graffiti, which was born in the 1970s in New York City and Philadelphia, and its main preoccupation is lettering. It is not about stencils, politics, or street art, but about styles, tags, and the lifestyle of the writers. About their struggles with the train guards, the police, the gangs. 

‘When I went with my mother shopping for shoes’, a writer reminisces, ‘I tried on only those models that I thought were okay for running across uneven terrain such as rocks, garden plots, fences. Mum wasn’t happy but no one would forbid me that’.

Exhibiting slick tags in the safe and sterile gallery space – as it happens in NYC these days, for example – would be against the spirit and essence of this unruly art. This is why the exhibition will feature artefacts, archival material, period documents, and an attempt to convey the mood of the graffiti writers’ work.

The show was inspired by a self-published book which came out in late 2013, Graffiti Goes East. 1990-2012. A fascinating visual trip through the main centres of Polish graffiti, accompanied by anecdotes and reminiscences, the publication disappeared from the shelves within days of its public release.
curated by Michał Woliński 
collaboration: Whole City